Educational Use

EDUCATIONAL USE

A documentary film that offers an intimate, unprecedented look at the lives of three women caught up in the complex issues surrounding abortion access. The film premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and had its broadcast premiere on Showtime.

Given the current political climate, this film is extremely relevant, laying bare the three sides involved in the abortion issue: the advocates for abortion, the advocates against it, and the patients in the middle, seeking out options.

A grim warning of what restrictive abortion legislation across the U.S. actually looks like. -The Huffington Post

Jackson allows all sides in the abortion issue to have their say to illuminate the issue's truths and lies. The results are sometimes engrossing, sometimes anger-inducing.-Beyond Chron

Crow deftly allows the story to unfold in the words, deeds, and realities of those involved without pushing too hard in one direction. In the end, the viewer is left to draw their own conclusions and work out their own feelings about whether the film chronicles the tale of a victory or a defeat.-The Lancet Medical Journal

JACKSON IS AN ESSENTIALRESOURCE AND TEACHING TOOL FOR:

This award-winning documentary film is an excellent resource for all library collections.

FILM SYNOPSIS

Abortion remains legal in the United States but anti-abortion efforts have succeeded in making it virtually inaccessible in some places and in the Deep South, often unthinkable. At one time Mississippi had fourteen abortion clinics. Now only one remains.

Since the passage of Roe v. Wade more than four decades ago, the self-labeled “pro-life” movement has won significant cultural, political and legal battles. Now, the stigma of abortion is prolific in Mississippi and women in poverty and women of color are particularly vulnerable. Jackson is wrought with the racial and religious undertones of the Deep South and explores the nuanced nature of abortion in America’s Bible Belt.

Shannon Brewer is the director of Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only remaining abortion clinic in the state. Barbara Beaver runs the Center for Pregnancy Choices and is a leader of the anti-abortion movement in Mississippi. April Jackson is a young mother of four children faced with another unplanned pregnancy.

Jackson is an intimate, unprecedented look at the lives of three women caught up in the complex issues surrounding abortion access. Set against the backdrop of the fight to close the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, Jackson captures the essential and hard truth of the lives at the center of the debate over reproductive healthcare in America.